The new DFCO coach, Pascal Dupraz, was the guest of 100% Sport
on France Bleu Bourgogne, Thursday May 18, 2023, two days before a crucial match for maintenance, in Nîmes. All the subjects were discussed with this atypical and well-known character in French football: the dynamics of his team, his style of play, his management, his communication, his future (or not) in Dijon. To end with a tasty tac-au-tac interview.
The current dynamic: “We have no room for error”
Pascal Dupraz is still undefeated since taking charge of the team in early April, with three wins and three draws, or 12 points in six games – the DFCO averaged 0.9 points before his arrival.“We have no room for error, us anyway. We have been here for almost seven games, and we had no room for error from the first game. Each game is a turning point , the better you negotiate the bend, the more it turns, and then it starts to turn sharply”.
What is the state of form of Bryan Soumaréone of the fit men of this maintenance operation? “I was a little worried, he took a bad blow on an ankle, and he’s fine, he’s being well cared for. He wants to be with us, it’s important. He will be with us at the last practice this Friday.
On the opposition against Nîmes which is looming on Saturday (Dijon two points behind the first non-relegation player, Nîmes seven points): “I don’t have an opinion on the opponents, I have so much to do with the boys I coach. It’s an end-of-season game, with players who, for the most part, if it were proven that Nîmes descends in National, would like to show themselves. I do not expect anything else, nobody gives us gifts”.
We have often regretted a DFCO unable to reverse a match, which has changed since the arrival of Haut-Savoyard. Has he found a team with leaders? “We appointed leaders. And I added one, as he is exemplary in training, it’s Cheick Traoré. He became the sixth captain of the DFCO. He is a key player at the end of the match, I I felt he was impatient, and so I gave him this mission. He is the captain of the late game players”.
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Pascal Dupraz and his game project: “What matters to me is the show, and that the supporters, the spectators, the followers, do not get bored”
How would Pascal Dupraz define his game project? “What matters to me is the show, and that the supporters, the spectators, the followers, are not bored. They were sometimes bored when my teams played. A game resolutely turned towards the offensive , with a lot of security defensively. With a balance. As soon as we can, we project ourselves forward”.
What more would he like to see from his team’s last three games? “We could improve further, in the outfit, the rhythm that we impose in the match. Sometimes there are sequences where we still disappear a little too much. But it is improving, we must recognize it. On the six games, we are the third total in Ligue 2. I think that if we continue like this, I think that maybe we could have the best total of points over the nine games. it would be synonymous with maintenance”.
The DFCO Dupraz version does not hesitate to clear the ball when there is danger, to the detriment of a construction from its penalty area. “When there is fire, it is always the firefighters who are called, the fire must be extinguished. The aesthetes who leave in the penalty area … the new rule which allows playing the six meters in the surface, for me it’s heresy I’m 61 soon, I’m not here to please, if I had to do it, I would have done it before I’m here because I have a mission to hold, it is not filled yet. I am not here to seduce the big clubs, they would have come before. Today, the fashion is above all not to say: “You have to defend”. when you say that, you’re screwed.”
“Let’s talk about beautiful play. What is beautiful play? Maybe, for some, passing the ball between the two central defenders 250 times in the match, 80 meters from the opposing goal, maybe you could say: “possession, we have mastered”. In fact they have mastered nothing at all. We cannot look like Manchester City, because it is 500 bricks per year of investment for Guardiola who is a coach but who on top of that has the means”.
A more physically demanding game? “We sharpened the players, and we prepared them for what I want. A footballer must express himself at 100% of his potential for 38 days, that’s how to live his job well. The job of a professional footballer, extremely well paid. I think it’s a shame to keep some underfoot. The players are there to be the best they can be, to “get high”, with intelligence – you don’t have to run against the wall of the stands, we can also think about our way of proceeding”.
Does he feel underrated? “Many rate me correctly. There are some olibrius who pay my face every time. It’s their trip. There are some chicks, and then there are some, it’s Pascal Dupraz”.
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The “participative” management of Pascal Dupraz
The DFCO striker, Mickael Le Bihan
, said: “Pascal Dupraz gets into our heads”. Which way does he enter? “By reflection. I often say, and I am misunderstood when I say it, I am endowed like all of us with a certain form of intelligence. All I set out to do is to operate the When I arrived here, I said to the players: “Do you want to be the clowns of the Côte-d’Or? Or would you like to be, for a short time, the heroes? It’s up to you, you just have to put your ideas in place and have a common project”.
Why does he never go to the players’ locker room at the training center? “It is a sacred place for me. I never go there …. when they are there. From time to time, I go there to see, if it is tidy and clean. For I didn’t intervene at the moment, but I’m going there without them seeing me”.
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Communication: “I don’t get pushed around”
Pascal Dupraz is a communication apart in a world of football which tends to sanitize. Dividing, singular … and very calculated. He uses in particular interventions in the press hoping for positive effects on his players. “I take advantage of your relay to send messages, which they may not have listened to during my speeches inside the club”.
The DFCO coach also cultivates this side alone against all. The idea that he would be the little one who will annoy the big ones. The Gallic village facing the Roman Empire. “I am Savoisien, I am not Gaul at all”he corrects. “I don’t get pushed around, it’s the character of the Savoyards”.
Is a documentary being prepared on the maintenance mission of the DFCO, as was the case in Toulouse? Or more recently with the Greens (never broadcast): “It’s a view of the mind, I did not know that in Saint-Etienne there were reports in preparation. I think that I should have been asked, at some point, for my opinion. It must have been another rant from one of my “lovers”.
Does he work more calmly in Dijon than in the past in Caen or Saint-Etienne, where passions were more devouring? “I have always been left to work, I have nothing to complain about. The last one was a failure, I had a bad experience of the descent from AS Saint-Etienne. When I arrived, the he team was last, they had 12 points. We scored 20 points, we managed to go to the play-offs, unfortunately missing a penalty, the team went down to Ligue 2. The supporters sent smoke bombs, charged, everything what I hate about football and sport and football in particular”.
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Pascal Dupraz remains evasive about his future: “Everything in its time”
This is the question asked by a live listener on the show, and it is the one that all supporters ask themselves: will Pascal Dupraz still be the DFCO coach next season? “I accepted a mission, it is for nine games. And I know that Olivier Delcourt, the president, does not ask himself the question of whether we continue to collaborate either. Everything in its time”. The door is not completely closed.
And if the DFCO were still to go down in National? “It’s the human adventures that matter to me. From the moment I live human adventures … it’s also when a club is in the bottom, and being able to turn it around. As much for one as for the other, this question deserves to be asked, but there is no more chance that I will stay in Ligue 2 or in Ligue 2, as there is no less”. Response from Normand for the Haut-Savoyard, who recalls his need to have surgery on both hips soon.
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One Touch Interview
If I tell you…
Dijon, the city : the tram, very practical. The city has character, taste.
Olivier Delcourt : kindness. He didn’t want to see me, according to my agents, I was often offered but he had no glowing terms for me.
Omar Daf : a very good trainer, who realizes that this job is extremely dangerous and difficult.
Saint Etienne : regret of my life. I really believed it. No one believed it, it was worse than here. And then the mountain man arrived and they all started to believe it. I spent two months in great difficulty, my wife no longer recognized me.
Johan Cruyff : what a player! Exceptional, my childhood idol. I cried in 1974, when the Netherlands lost against the Germans. I was crying, I was 12, my first football emotions.
Manchester United : Alex Ferguson, idol among coaches.
Coaching stars: I would like the presidents to try once. I would like to try. Probably, I will never succeed, I will never be given a challenge like this.
Contacts with a “big club”? : in Toulouse, after ten games, I can go to a big club playing in the Champions League, in a foreign country. But I refuse. All the supporters had my mask on in the stands, and I didn’t want to leave the ship. The year later, rebelote. My loyalty made me stay. It’s my karma, I don’t regret anything. I wouldn’t say which club, sometimes he comes back (laughs)
National coach : from Savoy yes right away. I have already been offered exotic selections. Yes, maybe one day.
Retirement : I want to work, but not to sweeten the strawberries. The coach with the saggy hips… it’s going to have to be fixed, apparently it’s fixable. Age makes us dysfunctional or dissonant with younger generations. For the moment apparently I am not, the kids find me quite funny, the players find me nice, with humor.
Social networks : I quit social media. My son took care of it. I was taking murderous tackles, it was hurting my family, I said stop, we stop.
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